Above: Matt Kern and Lia Heifetz, of Barnacle Foods, hold up one of their company’s raw products, bull kelp. Research funded by Alaska Sea Grant, a UAF program, has helped document how kelp grow and spread. The goal is to help mariculture farmers such as Kern and Heifetz succeed. Photo courtesy of Barnacle Foods and printed in the May 2020 Leader in Arctic Research: Forces at Work.
UAF, a leader in Arctic research, brings knowledge to state, nation and world.
A wide-ranging profile of UAF research, compiled in a recent report, documents some of the benefits of such work.
“UAF researchers have made our communities more resilient, our homes more comfortable, our investments less risky and our resources more sustainable,” said Larry Hinzman ’90, (now former) vice chancellor for research, in his introduction to the report, “Leader in Arctic Research.”
The publication’s 16 articles describe individual examples of UAF’s past and present research, much of it focused on the Arctic.
The most immediate work featured is the collaboration between UAF and the Alaska State Virology Lab on campus to test and analyze coronavirus samples from around the state. Another article documents how a UAF scientist used her knowledge of hibernating arctic ground squirrels to develop a newly patented method to treat brain trauma.
It’s all driven by UAF’s people, who come from around the world to this place of ingenuity and openness.
Read more in Leader in Arctic Research: Forces at Work.
And see more stories about UAF's recent research below.
Photo caption: Sockeye salmon swim in Pick Creek in the Bristol Bay region. Photo by Jonny Armstrong.
New tools track freshwater fish in changing climate
As extreme events like droughts and flooding occur more frequently, fish in freshwater systems are vulnerable.
That’s because they may not be able to relocate quickly if environmental conditions become unfavorable.
Three new online research tools will help scientists and the public better understand such challenges. They include a stream classification tool, a searchable database of research papers and a salmon life cycle model. Jeff Falke, associate professor at the UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, helped develop them.
Photo caption: Permafrost specialist Tom Douglas pauses on the ice of a Fairbanks creek that shows recent bank erosion, probably due to the thawing of soil that had been frozen for many years. Photos by Ned Rozell.
When permafrost kills? A moose story
Permafrost expert Tom Douglas ’97 found the remains of a young moose in a sinkhole this spring.
The moose might have gotten stuck in the depression, located on the hillside above the world-famous Permafrost Tunnel in Fox.
UAF science writer Ned Rozell ’90, in a column about the curious incident, noted that such sinkholes are growing more common as Alaska’s permafrost thaws. And they’re appearing faster.
They don’t form fast enough to swallow a moose, but perhaps this hole was deep enough to trap one.
Image caption: VIFDAHL map of the Chalkyitsik fire complex, made July 7, 2019. The orange points are low-intensity burns. Image courtesy of Chris Waigl/Alaska EPSCoR.
Satellites fill void for wildfire managers amid COVID-19 restrictions
While restrictions related to the coronavirus have made it more difficult for fire managers to rely on ground observations to track of blazes, their satellite sensing capabilities are intact.
UAF postdoctoral researcher Chris Waigl ’18 designed a system that tailors satellite fire-detection techniques for Alaska. It can detect low-intensity blazes with more accuracy.
Firefighters can use the data to decide when and where they’re needed most.
Photo caption: An eruption launches magma in area with surface fracturing in Iceland’s Bárdarbunga volcanic system on Sept. 14, 2014. A paper published in May may help anticipate similar volcanic eruptions. Photo by Jeffrey Alan Karson, Syracuse University.
New method may help anticipate large volcanic eruptions
The Bárdarbunga volcanic system in Iceland began to erupt from a fissure on Aug. 29, 2014. By the time it quit six months later, it had created an almost 33-square-mile lava field, the largest in Iceland in 200 years.
For many scientists, the size of the eruption was unexpected.
A new paper co-written by UAF researcher Ronni Grapenthin ’12 proposes a way to provide early clues to such events. The method involves evaluating magma movement far beneath volcanoes.
“Our work identifies the underlying mechanisms at work to cause such a behavior at a volcano,” Grapenthin said.
Dinosaurs striding across the land bridge
A scientist in Japan has discovered a dinosaur there that is closely related to a species that roamed Alaska long ago.
The dinosaur in Japan resembled Edmontosaurus, a 20-foot-long plant-eater. Fossils and footprints show Edmontosaurus lived across Alaska, including as far north as the North Slope’s Colville River.
They might have made their way to Japan via the Bering Land Bridge.
Photo caption: Ph.D. student Natalie Tyler stands next to a bubble survey transect in winter 2019. Photos by Melanie Engram.
Radar gauges methane release from Arctic lakes
By using synthetic aperture radar, or SAR, researchers found a correlation between “brighter” satellite images of frozen lakes and the amount of methane they produce. The innovation could make climate models more accurate.
Methane gas rises as bubbles under winter ice in northern lakes.
“We found that backscatter is brighter when there are more bubbles trapped in the lake ice,” said Melanie Engram ’12, the lead author of the study and a researcher at UAF’s Water and Environmental Research Center. “Bubbles form an insulated blanket, so ice beneath them grows more slowly, causing a warped surface which reflects the radar signal back to the satellite.”
Methane traps heat in the Earth’s atmosphere far more effectively than the more well-known carbon dioxide. So getting accurate estimates of its release from lakes will help improve climate models.
Photo caption: Peonies bloom in midsummer at Far North Flowers, a farm in the Fairbanks area. A new web tool from UAF scientists helps show how climate change likely will affect Alaska crops such as peonies. Photo by Krista Heeringa ’12/Far North Flowers.
Web tool forecasts climate effects on Alaska agriculture
An easy-to-use tool allows Alaskans to investigate the factors expected to affect future agriculture in their communities, from Ketchikan to Utqiaġvik.
A team led by Nancy Fresco ’06, network coordinator at UAF’s Scenarios Network for Alaska and Arctic Planning, developed the Alaska Garden Helper.
Using it, Alaskans can see projected changes in growing season length, annual minimum temperature and hardiness zones.
They’ll also see the expected change in growing-degree days, which reflect the season’s cumulative heat, an important variable for some crops.
Lessons from bones, dusty and stinky
Walruses that lived thousands of years ago had a more varied diet. That’s what UAF scientist Nicole Misarti ’07 has found by comparing new and old bones.
Walrus today eat mostly clams. Long ago, they ate more fish, seabirds and seals.
A resident of St. Lawrence Island, where residents depend on walrus for food, felt better about the disappearing sea ice used by walruses as a feeding platform.
“This is giving me some hope for the walrus,” Misarti remembered the elder telling her. “Maybe they’ll adapt to this (lack of sea ice) because they’ve adapted to some of these changes in the past.”
Photo caption: Meltwater flows from Edziza Glacier in British Columbia’s Edziza Provincial Park. The retreat of glaciers will change the quality of downstream river habitats for Pacific salmon in complex ways, a new study has found. Photo by Kara Pitman.
Melting glaciers will have mixed effects on Pacific salmon
Melting glaciers could create more good river habitat for Pacific salmon in the short term. But, if glaciers disappear entirely, the scarcity of cool meltwater could harm fish populations, according a new paper.
UAF’s Anne Beaudreau, a co-author, said impacts will vary depending on the phase of glacial retreat, the species of salmon, the specific characteristics of different watersheds and the life stage of the fish.
As a glacier terminus retreats from saltwater onto land, it could leave a river supplied with cool water, which might be good for salmon eggs and fry. However, if the glacier disappears and its contribution to the river dries up, the resulting warmer, reduced flow could stress the salmon.
Find more stories in the UAF newsroom.